Google Plus has 40m users

Google+ now has 40 million users. That figure may pale in comparison to Facebook's 800 million (and half a billion people in one day), but it's not bad for a social network that's only been open to the public a matter of weeks and was recently branded a "pathetic afterthought" by someone in the company.

Google made the announcement as part of its third quarter results. And unsurprisingly, there are some rather impressive numbers in there too.

The search giant reported third quarter earnings of $2.73 billion (£1.7 billion), with its owned and operated sites accounting for 69 per cent of its revenue. 

"We had a great quarter," CEO Larry Page said in a statement, possibly while doing bicep curls with his wallet. "Revenue was up 33 per cent year on year and our quarterly revenue was just short of $10 billion. Google+ is now open to everyone and we just passed the 40 million user mark. People are flocking into Google+ at an incredible rate and we are just getting started!"

Not everyone is as thrilled about Google+ though. Earlier in the week, a Google engineer accidentally made public a post calling the social network a "pathetic afterthought." He said Google didn't properly comprehend platforms, adding that it misunderstood the reasons behind Facebook's success, and called Google+ a "knee-jerk reaction." He intended the rant for colleagues only, but accidentally made it public.

Google+ was opened to the public last month, following months of being invite-only. Recent features include video hangouts coming to Android phones, the ability to share what's on your computer screen with whoever you're talking to, and to search within Google+, revealing socially shared info. Though last month news leaked out that Google's own CEO Larry Page hadn't updated his account in over a month. Naughty boy.

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